Economic growth

How to sustain our world for future generations has perplexed us for centuries. This book uses systems thinking to understand the dominant forces that are shaping our hope for sustainability. It first describes a mental model - the bubble that holds our beliefs - that emerges from preponderant world views and explains current global trends. The model emphasizes economic growth and drives behavior toward short-term and self-motivated outcomes that thwart sustainability.

Pavan Sukhdev lays out a sweeping new vision for tomorrow’s corporation: one that will increase human wellbeing and social equity, decrease environmental risks and ecological losses, and still generate profit. Corporation 2020 presents new approaches to measuring the true costs of business and the corporation’s obligation to society.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 presents new estimates of undernourishment based on a revised and improved methodology. The new estimates show that progress in reducing hunger during the past 20 years has been better than previously believed, and that, given renewed efforts, it may be possible to reach the MDG hunger target at the global level by 2015.

This publication explores the opportunities that a low carbon green growth path offers to the region. It articulates five tracks on which to drive the economic system change necessary to pursue low carbon green growth as a new economic development path.

This publication is an excerpt of the report, "Decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth : a report of the working group on decoupling to the International Resource Panel".

This report provides a solid foundation for the concept of decoupling, clearly defining key terms and providing empirical evidence of escalating resource use. It shows that decoupling is already taking place to some extent, but is lagging far behind its potential. The scenarios show that we are facing a historic choice about how we use resources and the report scopes the potential of innovation, rethinking economic growth and the role of cities in building more resource efficient economies.

This publication analyses the challenges, the potential and opportunities of African agribusiness in the current period of dramatic changes in global agro-industrial markets, and builds a case for agribusiness development as a path to Africa’s prosperity. Written by international experts, from agribusiness practitioners, to academic experts and UN technical agencies, the book fills what UNIDO perceived as a significant gap in knowledge concerning these issues.

This report on Transport for Sustainable Development in the ECE region deals with issues and best practices in inland transport, i.e. in road, rail, inland waterway and intermodal transport. It also outlines key UNECE contributions and reviews progress towards the development of more sustainable inland transport. Chapter 1 gives a brief review of sustainable development and its implications for transport.